


From Whence We Came

by GaiusTheGenius



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: M/M, Mythology - Freeform, Mythology References
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-01
Updated: 2018-07-01
Packaged: 2019-05-31 16:58:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,264
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15123866
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GaiusTheGenius/pseuds/GaiusTheGenius
Summary: “You hate the beach.” Andrew said by way of a greeting, curling his fingers into the cool sand and narrowing his eyes at the back of Neil’s head.“The beach reminds me of my mother.” Neil replied.





	From Whence We Came

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Andreil Week, Day 1: mythology

Neil hated the beach. Neil _hated_ the beach, Andrew _knew_ this, because the beach reminded him of his mother and his mother’s death. Andrew knew it because of how still Neil had gone at the first mention of a trip to the beach. He knew how much it bothered Neil, being at the beach, specifically because when he had asked, Neil had told him it was _fine_. What _bullshit_. Neil _hated the beach_.

So what the _fuck_ was he doing, slipping out of his bed and through the door, no shoes and no light to avoid waking Andrew, and making his way through the moonlight down to the sands that had made his eyes so fucking _sad_?

The moonlight shrouded the beach in ashy greys and blacks, and Neil’s silhouette looked ever so small, but ever so exposed in the flat landscape of the sand.

By the time Andrew had reached the edge of the beach, Neil had made it to the shoreline – what the _fuck_ , was he going _swimming_? – and suddenly the strangeness of it all was too much. Andrew almost scowled in annoyance at how tight his chest was feeling, the flutters of what was _not worry, fuck off was he worried about Josten, Josten was an idiot too often; if he started worrying about Josten he’d never have time for anything else_ -

Neil had sat down, close enough to the water’s edge that when the waves caressed the shore, they stroked over his bare feet as well. He didn’t turn when Andrew sat, to the left and slightly behind him so that the water couldn’t reach him.

“You hate the beach.” Andrew said by way of a greeting, curling his fingers into the cool sand and narrowing his eyes at the back of Neil’s head.

“The beach reminds me of my mother.” Neil replied.

It suddenly occurred to Andrew that this was not necessarily the same thing. “Good reminders?” He asked, feeling the sand trickle through his fingers and back to the beach.

Neil was quiet for a moment. “My mother loved the ocean,” he said quietly. “But she hated coming to the beach. We didn’t, very often. Until she- died. She drove us to the beach when she knew she was dying because she wanted me to take her back to the sea.”

Something in there caught on something in Andrew’s mind, snagged there, to be examined, because it wasn’t _quite_ –

“ _Back_ to the sea?” He asked, leaning forwards to see Neil’s profile as he stared across the waves. His new angle allowed him to see as Neil froze, for barely a second, before the air went out of him and he half-turned, facing Andrew but not quite meeting his eye.

“Truth for truth?” He asked, sounding more resigned than usual. Like maybe this truth wasn’t worth the truths he’d wrangle from Andrew in return. _Yes or no?_ Andrew thought to himself, studying the tense line of Neil’s shoulders and the way he still wasn’t meeting Andrew’s eyes. It was a no. It was a no, and Josten was trying to say yes anyway, _damn him_.

“Keep your secrets, Abram,” he said, as dismissively as he could. “I don’t want them.”

Finally, _finally_ , Neil’s eyes snapped to his. “Because you don’t want anything.”

Andrew, for the briefest of seconds, saw Bee in the back of his mind, heard her words – words that he had dismissed, hated –

Maybe here, in the silvery silence of the moon, he could say it, could amend the words that Neil had parroted back to him, that they both knew weren’t true but he’d been clinging to anyway.

“I don’t want anything,” he agreed, “that you aren’t willing to give.”

Neil held his gaze for a moment, swallowed and turned back to the sea. His toes curled in the waves as he took a deep breath.  “My parents met by the sea.” He said, staring at the waves cresting, then tumbling towards him, dragging over his feet and ankles, pulling him uselessly back with them. “My mother was – trusting, then. Half a day and she thought she was in love, and she told him what she was. And while they spent the afternoon together, he had some of his people find her coat and hide it from her so that she couldn’t leave.”

Andrew let the words settle between them, waited until Neil had definitely stopped, and briefly wrestled with the fact that Neil might not want to give any more, and the insistent question nagging him that that _wasn’t enough_.

 _Yes or no_? He thought as he murmured, “Her coat?”

Neil didn’t look at him as he replied. “Her seal coat. Her skin. Without it, she couldn’t return to the sea. She returned to the city with him, hoping that she’d be able to find it, or convince him to give it back, but he never did. He was _proud_ , that he’d caught her, that he had that power. When she finally gave up, realised that he had hidden it too well, we ran. She tried to return anyway, met up with her brother on a rocky beach in the middle of nowhere, but without her coat she was stuck in – in human form.”

He stopped again, and now his breathing was shorter, _panicking_ , Andrew thought, _about the fact that he’s just told me that_. He slid forwards on the sand and reached out to grip Neil’s shoulder, his neck, to ground him, to keep him _here._ Deliberately ignoring the many, _many_ questions about _skins_ and _seals_  and _human form_ , he focused on Neil’s panic, on the _Neil_ of the story, and asked, “She tried to return? And leave you here alone?”

Neil had stilled under the touch. His silence was answer enough. Andrew felt anger simmering, but not surfacing, not when Neil was so, so still and waiting for a reaction to the revelation that he wasn’t fucking _human_ –

Neil was speaking again, his voice slow as he found the words. “Being away from the sea – it changed her. Made her paranoid, bitter. But it was no good anyway: you need a seal coat to change back. If she’d used it to change herself back, there wouldn’t have been another for me. We were searching for another, for a way to change us both, when my father’s people caught up with us and killed her.”

Andrew didn’t want to know the answer to his next question, but he asked anyway, in a flat voice that hid his own – _feelings_ – on the matter. ( _I will not be like them._ )  “And now that she’s dead, if you find her… coat. You could use it.”

Neil swallowed again. “I could.”

Through the faint roaring in his ears, Andrew focused on Neil’s face as he turned from the sea to look at him again. Focused on Neil’s voice over the whispers, growing steadily louder in his mind, that _this is why you don’t want anything, you don’t_ get _anything, you fucking idiot, not_ you _, you want nothing, you get nothing, you_ are _nothing_ –

“My uncle would gladly take me in, if I found a way to get back to the sea,” Neil was saying, eyes steady on Andrew’s as though he could hear the thoughts rushing like the ocean’s hushed roar through Andrew’s mind. “And I could live there as a seal, safe from my father, and Riko, and everything.” He leaned closer, fingers nudging Andrew’s clenched fists until they loosened enough for Neil to wrap his fingers around Andrew’s. “But,” he continued, “I’d rather be a fox.”

**Author's Note:**

> I wish I had the time right now to flesh this out into a longer, chapter fic. Maybe over the summer...


End file.
